


what did it cost?

by mildlyobsessive



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Grief/Mourning, I repeat, Infinity War spoilers, Panic Attacks, Revenge, Spoilers, Suicidal Thoughts, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, for a hot sec
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-14
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-05-03 19:01:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14575557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mildlyobsessive/pseuds/mildlyobsessive
Summary: Here’s the thing.When Strange told him about all this: the mass genocide, the homicidal purple alien, the impending end of times, all that, Tony Stark had kind of assumed that, if worst came to worst, he’d be one of the unlucky 50%.But not the kid. Never the kid.





	what did it cost?

**Author's Note:**

> I can’t stop thinking about this stupid movie

Here’s the thing.

When Strange told him about all this: the mass genocide, the homicidal purple alien, the impending end of times, all that, Tony Stark had kind of assumed that, if worst came to worst, he’d be one of the unlucky 50%. 

But not the kid. Never the kid.

But here he is, on Titan with a half-metal sociopath, alive, while pieces of Peter are stuck to his hands, ashes clumping together in blood and sweat. The blue lady, Nebu-something, is saying something, but he can’t hear her. There’s this ringing that won’t stop, coupled with the kid’s cries echoing. It doesn’t end, the begging. He can still hear it.

He wishes Strange had let him take one for the team this round, let him bleed out and kept the stone instead. He wishes it was him as a pile of dust on the ground of an alien world, not some sixteen year-old who only ever wanted to prove himself. He wishes he’d died in that wormhole back in New York six years ago, or from Palladium poisoning, or in that god-forsaken cave in Afghanistan. 

The blue robot is pulling him onto his feet, and he’s too tired to fight her. She sets him on some piece of wreckage from her ship and sets about examining the hole left in him by her father. 

“What are you doing?” He thinks he asks, but he can’t really hear anything except Peter Parker begging not to die and his deafening silence in the face of it. 

“You’re going to bleed out if we don’t take care of this,” she says.

_There’s no ‘we’_ , Tony wants to scream, but everything feels very distant and numb and he can’t scrounge up the effort. “Leave it,” he mutters instead.

“You’ll die if I do,” she says slowly, as if he were an idiot. It’s strange, someone not knowing who he is. Not knowing what he’s done, what he’s capable of doing. All the red in his ledger. 

“I said leave it.”

She ducks her head to look at him, dead black eyes narrowing slightly. Tony looks at the plating in her forehead and vaguely thinks that he’s found someone more machine than him. “No,” she says simply, and sets about removing the webbing from his wound. “You will heal because you must. My father’s still out there.”

“He won,” Tony mutters. The crying’s a little more distant now, fading. The pain in his chest quiets it. “There’s no point.”

“He sacrificed my sister for a rock,” she snaps, suddenly, blue fingers digging a little more roughly into the remnants for his suit. “And he killed your child, without remorse. Is that not reason enough?”

“Wasn’t . . . my child,” he forces out, a wheeze catching the words in his throat. It’s not a panic attack, just some dust caught in his throat. He wonders what, or who, he inhaled.

“Yes, he was,” says the blue woman impersonally, applying some unfamiliar alien salve to the stab wound. “Maybe not by blood, but that hardly matters. Gamora did not share any with me, but she was my sister. That monster, though-“ she breaks off, voice sounding like a record skipping when she stutters. “He is not my father-not in blood or in heart.” 

Done, she wipes her hands on her pant legs. “I am Nebula,” she says. “Daughter of-of . . of no one. Since we’re stuck together we might as well become acquainted.”

“Tony Stark,” he says, and in the distance a voice says _Mr Stark, I don’t feel so good_.

“I know of you, Man of Iron,” Nebula says, and before Tony really processes what’s happening she’s messing with some sort of console in her arm. A loud beeping noise comes from the mangled heap that half-an-hour ago had been Nebula’s ship, and a pod pushes through the rubble, landing before them.

“Let’s get off this forsaken rock,” Nebula nearly growls. She loops an arm around Tony, forcing him to his feet. 

“I-I can’t leave him,” Tony groans, and he struggles against her metal grip. “His aunt, she doesn’t know-she needs something-I need . . .” he can’t breathe. “I was supposed to protect him, and I failed. I can’t leave him here.”

Nebula easily swings him against the pod, ignoring his recently bandaged wound. “There is nothing to leave,” she whispers, mere inches away from his face. “The boy is not here. None of them are. There is nothing but dust, and letting yourself die here won’t change that.”

“Peter-“

“Is _dead_ , Stark. As is my sister and her friends. As is half the universe. You are not the only one who has something to mourn today.”

He stares at her black, insect-like eyes and wonders who did this to her. Made her more machine than flesh. He’d tried to protect himself like that, protect those around him. He’d failed, and failed, and failed again. 

Tony looks at the blue alien. Failing is not a possibility anymore. He’s been checkmated. Beaten fair and square.

But he’s always been a dirty player. 

He nods.

The cyborg smiles, terrifyingly.

“You call yourself an Avenger?” She asks, somewhat rhetorically.

He nods again. Words are still a bit too much.

“That skill set should come in handy,” she grins, and helps him into the pod.


End file.
